The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) has announced it will no longer offer any new Bitcoin futures contracts moving forward amid declining volumes. But since the derivatives product was USD settled, many commentators are bullish on the news.

No New CBOE Bitcoin Futures Contracts

The Chicago Futures Exchanges (CFE) of the The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) has revealed it will no longer offer any new contracts for its cash-sttled XBT Bitcoin futures product moving forward.

However, existing contracts will still be available for trading, the latest of which are set to expire in June 2019. The exchange will now evaluate whether XBT futures and possibly other digital derivative products will see the light of day in the future.

“CFE is not adding a Cboe Bitcoin (USD) (“XBT”) futures contract for trading in March 2019,” the official announcement reads.

CFE is assessing its approach with respect to how it plans to continue to offer digital asset derivatives for trading. While it considers its next steps, CFE does not currently intend to list additional XBT futures contracts for trading. Currently listed XBT futures contracts remain available for trading.

The announcement may not come as a surprise given the declining volumes of XBT that was rolled out to much fanfare in December 2017 – when Bitcoin price hit its historic all time high of nearly $20,000 USD.

Since launch, XBT has been losing ground to Bitcoin futures from The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), whose volume has dwarfed XBT’s in recent month despite starting neck and neck.

Last month, Bitcoinistreported that the two products have hit yearly lows in terms of volume. Though CME’s BTC futures still saw roughly $1.5 billion in monthly volume for December 2018 compared to a paltry $250 million from the CBOE.